Four recipients of NMEA’s Expanding Audiences scholarships are among the authors featured in this general issue and we couldn’t be more proud of them! The eight articles in this issue highlight teachers who are working with elementary school children, middle school students, and high schoolers in places that range from California, Florida, and Bermuda to New York, Maine and Indiana.

A common thread runs through these stories: the ocean belongs to each of us, and we are all entrusted with its care. This notion is so basic that it actually forms the 6th Essential Principle of Ocean Literacy: The ocean and humans are inextricably connected.

As educators and scientists, we must advocate for the health of our ocean and its resources in a way that ordinary people can understand, enabling them to recognize how their own actions have an impact upon the ocean, no matter where they live. The young people being educated and inspired by this issue’s contributors seem to understand this instinctively, embracing both the science and the advocacy with a passion that gives us hope for our ocean planet’s future.